One of my favorite movies is “Being There” starring Peter Sellers. If you haven’t seen it, I highly suggest that you rent it, as the movie and cast won numerous awards for their performance and wonderful story. I’ll paraphrase the story by saying that a simple-minded gardener (Chance Gardner) is thrust in to the outside…
Metrics are good. They can be valuable and you can glean insight from them. But my admonition to all is that you proceed with caution when it comes to using metrics and data to make business decisions. All too frequently, I see business leaders completely absorbed in spreadsheets and reports. Percentages, conversion ratios and growth…
It seems that sales and marketing alignment, unlike a doctors exam, is something everybody wants to do. It feels like we get an email a day from Marketo or Eloqua on alignment issues, ranking as a topic only slightly behind insights on how to integrate social media into the mix. The esteemed CSO Insights and…
I feel like a relationship counselor writing this blog post but most of the technology companies that I’ve worked with over the past 20+ years have had a dysfunctional relationship between sales and marketing. The only thing that varies is how severe the dysfunction is between the two groups. Open disclaimer, I am an unabashed…
Ah the proverbial sales funnel. All of us in sales have lived by it and some of us have died by it in our careers. What is it? Has it changed? Who changed it? The sales funnel is a metric driven tool used to measure sales conversion ratios. That is to say the percentage that…
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, there was a television public service announcement campaign that asked: “Parents, it is 10:00 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” All sales execs are asking themselves the same question about their sales pipelines. Unfortunately, the issue is that you know where your sales pipeline is, and it isn’t…
Great HBR article on the 7 deadly sins of salespeople. Absolutely worth the read!http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/salespeoples_seven_deadly_sins.html
Ironic wording in SJ Mercury News article title! Since when did Verizon & Google “own” the internet?Next thing you know Al Gore is going to claim to have invented the internet… http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_15872444
Ah the proverbial sales funnel. All of us in sales have lived by it and some of us have died by it in our careers. What is it? Has it changed? Who changed it? The sales funnel is a metric driven tool used to measure sales conversion ratios. That is to say the percentage that…
* Marketing & Selling is harder than ever before, you need the right domain expertise to succeed * Runways are shorter, you need to achieve customer & revenue traction faster than ever before * More competition than ever before, it’s vital to get your messaging, value prop & differentiation right * Would you skimp on…